fabled_albionfandomcom-20200215-history
Nippon
Nippon is a small archipelago, situated north-west of Iberia in the Iapetus Ocean, however the nation is not part of Baltica like the previously mentioned country. There are seven islands, with four of them being inhabited while the three others are left to their natural state. The principal island is Kinoshima, which literally means ‘the castle island’. It’s where the royal family and most of the population of Nippon have been living for centuries, building cities and villages from north to south, from west to east. The people are called Nipponese or Nihhonjin/Nipponjin in their maternal language. The language spoken among the land is known as Nipponese and very little people speak any other language except for the royal family, who is rumoured to know not only Iberian as part of their political training but also Albanian as they take pride in being able to communicate with the opposite continent should the need arise. The country is known to be very secret and very little is known about its inhabitants, geography or culture outside of its borders. Nipponese people are extremely conservative of their traditions and most of them developed xenophobia over the decades of secluded existence. The only outsiders they trust are Iberians as they formed an alliance with the country and some adventurous Nipponese even immigrated to the Land of Gold. 'History' The known story of the Nipponese country starts in the year 403 of the New Kingdom Era (Albion time). The first inhabitants of the islands were already established on Kinoshima by this time but what came before is a blur. Some say that the Nipponese are the descendants of some Albanian survivors of the Old Kingdom fall. They say the people left the Northern Wastes by ship and sailed the sea to what would become Nippon. Nipponese people themselves explain the origin of their existence by their religion legends. 'Geography & Climate' 'Religion' Nipponese follow the Tenkei religion, which means “divine revelation”. They have a complex pantheon of gods they worship and a strange creation myth to explain the existence of the world, their country, the human beings and others, water and sky, mountains and valleys. It is said that in the beginning of time, the universe was a vast dark abyss above which shone a bright light. For thousands of years the abyss stayed silent until one day the sound of particles moving broke the muted state of the universe. The particles rose under the light but as they weren’t as fast as her, they couldn’t go higher: they formed the clouds and Heaven, which was to be called Takamagahara (High Plain of Heaven). The particles that had stayed behind formed a dark mass that became the Earth. From Heaven were created five gods that were called the Kotoamatsukami, they were alone and scared of the world so they hid. Once Takamagahara became empty again, two more gods were born, alone again, and finally ten more, the twelve of them being called the Kamiyonanayo, who decided to find a partner of life between their siblings. The youngest gods were Izanagi no Mikoto and his younger sister Izanami no Mikoto. The two of them went to the bridge that joined the Heaven to the Earth, the Amenoukihashi (Floating Bridge of Heaven) and created the oceans and an island upon which they descended. As they lived together, they fell in love and decided to have children. According to the ancient gods tradition, they built a pillar called Amenomihashira and a palace called Yashirodono (the Hall whose Area is 8 arms’ length squared). Izanagi and Izanami turned around the pillar in opposite direction and met on the other side to mate. When they came upon each others, Izanami was the first to talk and despite Izanagi who didn’t think it was proper, they mated anyway. They had two children, Hiruko (the leech child) and Awashima (pale island), but they were deformed and ugly and nobody wanted them to be gods. Disappointed, Izanami and Izanagi put the babies in a basket and sent them floating on the ocean before asking for advices to the other gods. The Kamiyonanayo informed them that a female should never talk before a man as it is improper and that was why the children were defective. The couple went around the pillar again and this time, Izanagi spoke first to his wife. From their successful union were born the Shichiseishima (The Seven Spirits of the Islands), who were sent swimming in the ocean as they became the seven islands of Nippon. However, as Izanami was giving birth to an eighth child, she died and she was buried at Mt. Seika. Angry, Izanagi killed the eighth child, Kagutsuchi (incarnation of fire), and then left for Yomi (the shadowy land of the dead) to get his wife back. When he reached the underworld, he found no difference from the surface except for the darkness; everywhere he looked reigned the night. He searched high and low for Izanami and found her hiding in the shadows; Izanagi asked her to come back with him to the surface but she told him that she had already eaten the Yomi food and belonged to the land of the dead. Refusing to let his love be swallowed by the night, he pretended he needed to rest before going back to the surface and Izanami went hiding in her room, making him promise he wouldn’t follow her. Izanagi waited and waited but couldn’t stop himself from stepping into his wife’s room. He grabbed the comb she used to brush her hair and set it alight, making himself a torch to see in the darkness. Under the fire’s light, he saw the disgusting leftovers of what had been his graceful wife. She was rotting flesh and broken bones, wiggling maggots and dry colorless hair. His screams of terror woke Izanami up and as her husband ran away, she sent the underworld’s creatures after him to bind him to Yomi. Izanagi threw his headdress at the creatures, which became a bunch of black grapes. He threw the flaming comb and it became a clump of bamboo shoots. He urinated against a tree and created a great river to stop the creatures but it was not enough. He grabbed peaches and hurled them at the creatures and finally reached the exit of the underworld. He quickly pushed a giant boulder in front of the entrance and as he thought himself saved, he heard Izanami’s voice from the other side. She said that if he didn’t come back, she would destroy 1000 humans every day. Furious, he replied that he would created 1500 of them every morning. Izanami became the goddess of Death, the proud but lonely wife of Izanagi. To recover and purify himself after his horrible descent in the Yomi, Izanagi went to a lake and undressed himself. Each of his garments became a deity and each water drop that touched his body transformed into a god. As he washed his face, Amaterasu (incarnation of the sun) leaked from his left eye, her brother Tsukuyomi (incarnation of the moon) dripped from his right eye and Susanoo (incarnation of the storms and ruler of the sea) spilled from his nose, his last children. He gave the Heaven to his daughter, the night and moon to his first son and the oceans to his last son. As the sons and daughters of Izanagi spread across the globe and mate more and more, the god-shark Ugaya and his aunt Tamayori gave birth to four sons, the last of them being Wakamikenu no Mikoto, better known as Kamuyamato Iwarebiko the first Nipponese emperor. Although he was a direct descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu, the gods decided to send him and his brothers to the normal world, ordering them to build a village on Kinoshima, the biggest island. The four brothers then created a beautiful hamlet that would later be called Honmura – “the original village”. 'Politics' 'Culture' Category:Places